The subject matter relates generally to business process management systems, and more particularly to scheduling systems in the clinical setting, such as healthcare delivery institutions or hospitals.
Healthcare delivery institutions are business systems that can be designed and operated to achieve their stated missions robustly. As is the case with other business systems such as those designed to provide services and manufactured goods, there are benefits to managing variation such that the stake-holders within these business systems can focus more fully on the value added core processes that achieve the stated mission and less on activity responding to variations such as delays, accelerations, backups, underutilized assets, unplanned overtime by staff and stock outs of material, equipment, people and space that is impacted during the course of delivering healthcare. Additionally, as the need arises for procedures and interventions where time is of the essence (which is very often in healthcare and other service delivery business systems), the capacity to have rapid and well-orchestrated responses without sacrificing other performance aspects of the enterprise is highly desired.